The present invention relates generally to fuze circuits and more particularly to firing circuits for fuzes.
Safety considerations in the design of fuze circuits has already been of prime importance. False firings of projectiles and bombs due to improperly designed fuzes can cause extensive damage to property and life. Safety precautions, such as grounding the electronic circuit of the fuze to the weapon's casing and driving the fuze circuit with a negative supply, have virtually eliminated false firings due to the outside electromagnetic energy interference. However, such precautions have resulted in the necessity of entirely new fuze circuitry operable from a negative supply. For example, standard capacitive discharge circuitry is inoperable from a negative supply when the load is grounded.
In addition, due to the limited space available in the weapon, fuze design has required a minimum number of components to carry out designed functions necessary to the operation of the fuze. For example, standard fullwave rectifiers and integrators contain too many electrical components and are too bulky for fuze design.